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This story is about a woman who I will call Cheryl. She was my first female student. I had to let this story percolate in my consciousness for a few days before I sat down to write it. Cheryl is a complicated person. She reminds me of the Yin and Yang symbol in oriental philosophy.
I'll start with my first impression of Cheryl. I drove out to Iowa from my home town in Ohio to pick her up. We would be under a load going out to southern California. I met her in the lounge of the trucking terminal. She was a very short person. She later told me that she was 4'11". She had long, artificially colored, red hair and appeared to me to be pushing 60. I later learned that she was 46. I offered to carry one of her bags for her out to the truck and she told me that I could have the heavy one. She wasn't joking. That damned bag felt like it weighed as much as her. I have no idea how she lugged that around. She then told me that she had been living out of that bag for the past two years. I knew right then that I would have one of my better stories out of that little woman.
We got everything out to the truck and she immediately started telling me about her life. She told me that there was a man and she showed me his picture. She said he was a really nice guy. He'd left her $500 to cover her expenses while she was in truck driving school. And, get this, he'd only hit her, "Two, no, three times since I've known him." Right there I wanted to give her the low down on what you should do when a guy hits you and you are a woman, but I held my tongue. I'd only just met her.
Cheryl was homeless and a recovering alcoholic. She had five kids, but lost custody of the two that were still minors when the court found out about her alcoholism. She was currently dodging paying child support. Her oldest child is 30. Yup, 16 when she had that first one. She had been living off of the charity of friends and family for the past two years as well as spending many nights in her little pick-up truck.
That's a little about Cheryl.
I soon learned that Cheryl's truck driving skills were abnormally bad even for someone coming right out of truck driving school. So I asked her about her experience there. She said they pushed her through the class in eight days because of the Thanksgiving holiday. The school is normally supposed to last 21 days. I asked her how she had managed to pass the CDL test. She said that they gave her the CDL despite her not actually passing some aspects of the test. I was disgusted. Not with her, but with the money grabbing assholes that were running the trucking school.
I had to tell Cheryl when to shift and down-shift the truck. I had to tell her to slow down for curves and off-ramps. She had never successfully backed a truck. She was clueless when it came to the log book and that's a skill she should have acquired in the trucking school. It was almost just like picking someone up off the street and throwing them in a truck and telling them to drive when they had never been in one before.
After about a week and a half Cheryl was showing some signs of improvement, but she was still way behind the curve. I was about to give up on her but then I thought about it for a minute. Nobody had ever given Cheryl a chance in her life. I thought it was about time that she got one. I called up the training manager at my company and I laid it on the line for him. I told him about how they had pushed her through the school and how she didn't really pass the CDL test. I told him she was going to need more than the mandatory 28 days with a trainer and I plead her case. The training manager made it so.
I told Cheryl the same thing that I told the training manager and I told her that I got her more time. She knew she needed more work and started saying things like maybe trucking wasn't the thing for her. Then she told me how determined she was to get her CDL and succeed. How she didn't want to fail. How other people had looked down their noses at her when she told them she wanted to be a truck driver and told her she'd never make it. I told her to stay positive. I told her she was going to make it, she just needed more time.
That night Cheryl had to drive us into a receiver. For three hours in Missouri she drove through the hills and the curves and I didn't have to say a word to her. When we got to the customer they wanted us to drop our trailer in a slot. I had Cheryl back the truck while I stood under her window and guided her back in. She backed up a truck successfully for the first time that night. When she got back in there I shook her hand and congratulated her. You should have seen the smile on her face. What a wonderful Christmas present. I think Cheryl is going to be ok.
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